Strange

Famous quotes containing the word strange:

    “Ideals possess the strange quality that if they were completely realized they would turn into nonsense. One could easily follow a commandment such as “Thou shalt not kill” to the point of dying of starvation; and I might establish the formula that for the proper functioning of the mesh of our ideals, as in the case of a strainer, the holes are just as important as the mesh.”
    —Robert Musil (1880–1942)

    “All beauty, resonance, integrity,
    Exist by deprivation or logic
    Of strange position.”
    —John Ashbery (b. 1927)

    “Open the envelope quickly,
    O this is not our son’s writing, yet his name is sign’d,
    O a strange hand writes for our dear son, O stricken mother’s soul!
    All swims before her eyes, flashes with black, she catches the main
    words only,
    Sentences broken, gunshot wound in the breast, cavalry skirmish, taken to hospital,
    At present low, but will soon be better.”
    —Walt Whitman (1819–1892)